Ms. Kay’s experience does sound unpleasant — just as any job a person doesn’t want to do will be unpleasant. And I do sympathize. She writes that before she even started working, she “felt like vomiting” and adds, “There was no question this gig didn’t come naturally to me.” Hey, I’ve felt like that about jobs before. Usually those feelings are a strong hint that I shouldn’t take the job! Ms. Kay, on the other hand, went right ahead — but it’s not her own fault, it’s Craigslist’s fault.

She notes that she’d sent out “hundreds” of cover letters to other jobs before trying her hand at escorting, but one wonders if she tried McDonald’s. Or was that too degrading to contemplate? What about selling the car she mentions in the article, or asking the parents she mentions for support? I’m not trying to mock the “desperation” Ms. Kay says she felt, but it’s hard to believe that a woman with such an obvious safety net truly felt that she had no choice at all. Not to mention, there are plenty of escorts who got into the business because they were strapped for cash, but who don’t disown the choice they made, even if they had a bad experience in the end.

Perhaps part of the problem is that Ms. Kay didn’t do her research. (Would she have done more research if she’d taken a less romanticized, less stereotyped, so-called “real” job?) Her knowledge of the sex industry appears to have been limited to watching an interview with Ashley Dupré (you know, that girl who become famous for the ruin of Eliot Spitzer). Ms. Kay complains that she thought high-end escorts had a better life than the one she was exposed to. Well, many of them do — but many of them also try multiple work avenues, enjoy their jobs, and work hard at building a career: “I was eating ramen noodles and buying my work clothes from Ross Dress For Less,” writes FurryGirl of her first few years. As for liking the job, enjoyment is a pretty important ingredient of success at any career, but especially high-end sex work. As Mistress Matisse notes, “Clients often prefer someone who is warm and friendly to a chilly bitch who can get that extra inch down her throat.”

In particular, you’d think that someone who decides to go into sex work would have tolerance for other people’s sexuality. But too many don’t, as Ms. Kay demonstrates when she talks about an S&M-oriented client: she calls him “the guy who insisted I dominate him and creeped me out so much I had to ask him to leave.” No wonder she didn’t earn much of a living: “I never made more in a week than I’d made in any other job I’d had — often a lot less.” She calls the advertisements offering escorts lots of money “false promises”, but in reality they’re more like similar ads from insurance jobs or other commission-based careers: some people are good at getting those promised high commissions, and some aren’t.

I’m being serious when I say that I’m sorry for what Ms. Kay went through. She made a mistake, she chose a job that didn’t suit her, and again, it sounds like she had a really bad time. But nothing non-consensual happened to her, no one abused her, except for one single client who stiffed her for a fee. And despite my sympathy, I’m furious that Ms. Kay is using her story to militate against visibility and acceptance for sex work. She even acknowledges that there was absolutely nothing non-consensual about her experience: “I was carded by my employers. I was never forced to do something I didn’t want.” Yet at the same time, she condemns Craigslist merely for making it possible, using overwrought language better suited to a 1930s pulp novel: “ads on Craigslist made it easy — yes, too easy — for a naive woman like me to slide into a dark and illegal lifestyle.” She ends her article by saying that she hopes the Craigslist shutdown will “prevent someone like me from going down this path.”

I am reminded of a moment from 2004, when I attended the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C. As we cheered and sang and marched for abortion rights, we passed a (much smaller) group of pro-life protesters. One street was lined with pro-life women who had chosen to have an abortion; they regretted it and had decided that, because of their bad experience, other women shouldn’t be allowed the same choice.

My column of pro-choicers briefly fell silent when we passed those pro-life demonstrators. We were touched by their obvious pain. But as the truth slowly seeped in — that these women were hypocritically seeking to restrict our choices, based on their mistakes — a cry went up: “Your body, your choice,” we shouted.

Your body, your choice, Phoebe Kay. Pick up the pieces, learn from your mistake, and move on. If you’re so concerned about other women, then don’t use your story to distract from the real issues: issues of free will, bodily integrity, social security, and oppressive gender dynamics. I’m just sick and tired of sob stories that ignore what’s important about sex work — like the all-important fact that decriminalizing sex work, decreasing stigma, and raising the profession’s visibility will make conditions better both for those who enter the sex industry voluntarily, and for those who want to leave it.

What is it about sex that leads people to get so polarized and politicized? This is not the first time I’ve seen the “I had a bad experience so that means its all bad and no one should do it!” reaction to sex work.

And speaking of Salon its interesting how they were all over the story about Craigslist’s Adult services and declaring that that section was only relevant to the amateur Johns anyway. Yeah because there’s no way those amateurs do bad things. (But personally I think that the people who wanted that section closed are against any and all sex work.)

Sex work is a mixed bag just like any other job. There are good experiences (I don’t see too many people rallying to end Wal-Mart altogether because of how it mistreats its employees) and bad experiences. Just because it involves sex (or women I suspect) doesn’t make it any more worthy of attention.

Oh this is such a hard topic for me. It’s like I hear whichever side and my heart strings pull. There has been very little that has been as humiliating as the sexual experiences I agreed to have that I didn’t want to have.

That line between pressured consent, coerced consent, and force becomes so gray in my head. I don’t think that anyone should get in trouble for having consensual sex when their partner isn’t voicing how they are feeling. But then again if a partner knows they are pushing unwanted sex and their partner eventual submits, I think it’s a horrible thing to do to someone (even if not illegal). The law can’t arrest people for hurting each others feelings or for not mind reading.

But my instincts what to protect people even if they’re making bad choices. I know, I know, there has to be a reasonable level of freedom to do anything you want no matter how it damages your future self. But yet, I still want to protect people from suffering no matter what choices they’re making.

For me, I see that as making sure that accurate information is available. Like for example, those guys who drive trucks over the ice in Alaska or wherever that show is? Do they know the statistics on the risks? Do they know the statistics on how mental health is affected by a job in which your life is at risk? It’s more about AWARENESS and informed consent, than about putting people in jail for making a risky choice.

Many professions carry HUGE risks to our emotional, physical, and psychological wellbeing. Working in a coal mine? Working in a nuclear power plant? Building skyscrappers? How about working as a mental health worker? Listenting to trauma of others on a daily basis can lead to secondary trauma in mental health workers.

There is risk in many professions and that doesn’t mean we should put people who work as mental health workers in jail because they took a risk that their mental health might be affected by it. Many mental health workers don’t notice any of these affects, although statistically a larger portion do. However learning coping skills to deal with “burn out” is now part of training social workers and mental health workers. Meaning that if sex work were made legal, then I would hope that information on the known risks would be made available to people who choose to work in that field.

But it makes my soul hurt when I think about it. I know that others don’t feel the same way and fortunately I am not in charge of the law because I don’t have any answers. I just know I ache inside when I think about people wanting to buy sex because they don’t want to love the person they are getting sex from or being there for them in the long run.

Part of this is because I am deep down a Care Bear and I think we should all try to be there for each other in a way that is real and meaningful whenever we can. I feel like those kind of interactions (in my head) feel so empty, and because I know how the idea makes me feel, and the sex I’ve had with people who didn’t want to care about anything other than getting sex made me feel, I have this desire to save people from these things. I would give everyone money so they never have to do anything for money again. LOL I know, I know, socialism was a big flop but I am a socialist at heart.

Overall a really good and true posting, but, without having read the original posting though, don’t you think the part bout “tolerance for other people’s sexuality.” sounds a bit off to me.
Just because shes a sex worker she’s not allowed to have and protect her boundaries of do’s and don’ts? If S&M isn’t for her its her damn right to deny everyone who wants it from her. Cause its still her sexuality, her body and her mind shes working with, and not an empty page open for projections.
“If you don’t wanna do everything, no wonder you’re not making any cash” wasn’t supposed to be the message of the article, right?

@rox — I share your feelings about unwanted sexual experiences! It is a hard line, but I find that I simply run out of patience for anyone whose sympathy translates to limiting my choices.

@Lars — Of course she totally has the right to set boundaries. But a sex worker, of all people, shouldn’t be calling guys “creepy” for expressing alternative sexuality. If she doesn’t want to dominate him, fine. If she wants to talk about how disgusting he is, that’s not fine at all — and it’s a clear indicator that she’s probably too freaked out by the job in general to ever be capable of warmth towards a client (just in case we didn’t know that already from the rest of her article).

I really sympathize with where you are coming from, wanting to help people and protect them from bad choices. Something that really helped me wrap my head around this desire and what it means for me and the people in my life is a short essay by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, called In the Service of Life (that link goes to the full text on her website. She is coming from the position of both a medical professional and a person with a chronic illness, who has been on the giving and receiving end of help, but I found that her concepts are very generalizable. She speaks mainly about the differences between helping, fixing, and serving, and how these relate to the person giving and the person receiving. The take-away quote is: “When you help you see life as weak, when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole.”

I found that this essay resonates for me as a social activist, as an aspiring service provider, as a person prone to “helping”, as well as a person interested in servitude spiritually and sexually, though I don’t know how much Dr. Remen was thinking about that last one. :)

I completely understand the desire to help and fix and protect, but I have learned (usually the hard way – ouch) that these desires are not always compatible with serving someone as a whole person. And while I dedicate not an insignificant portion of my life and energy to the amelioration of my social context, for me this does not translate into trying to rid the world of bad things and bad experiences. I just feel that bad things should be more random, and that people should have greater ability and freedom to assimilate the bad things they objectively experience into a fulfilled and meaningful subjective experience.

I don’t see why everyone is making a big deal of this — there are literally hundreds of other escort sites out there.
The others are safer, too, since their users can leave reviews, etc. to give endorsements and/or safety warnings. (craigslist was always dangerous — something like 20-30% of the ads were left by undercover vice cops, and i would imagine that a similar percentage of possible “clients” were the same)

Yes, I think it’s ridiculous to think that arresting women or men for sex work will help anyone. I haven’t ever met any sex workers who made it to high paying escort services, and I’m absolutely certain the experience is so radically different as to not be very comparable to women with drug addiction/abuse issues/mental emotion problems who choose sex work out of desperation. Making meaningful work available to all people is something I have a deep passion for.

And it seems this is the solution rather than dictating what women should choose to work in. I believe whole heartedly that there are some women who have the ovaries to work in sex work and know themselves well enough to judge whether they are working the game or the game is working them.

Really the solution to prevent people from feeling powerless and trapped into something that feels dehumanizing is of course to change everything LOL… from our education system, sexual education programs, to the available resources for families and for people who are struggling. I have a lot of hope that I see so many people who do believe in these things. I may be a hopeless optimist, but I really do hope we will (and are) constantly improving how we do things.

I think this ties in very well with the idea of limiting womans access to abortion under the guise of “protecting” them from future guilt. The goal should NOT ever be to restrict options, but to make womens most desired outcomes more accessible. If a woman wishes she could parent but feels she has no choice but abortion because she lacks resources, the goal would be to make sure succesful parenting is accessible for women who feel that weould be their first choice if possible. While also LEAVING THE OPTION AVAILABLE for women who know that is their desired outcome regardless of availability of adequate parenting options.

“…sex workers who made it to high paying escort services, and I’m absolutely certain the experience is so radically different as to not be very comparable to women … who choose sex work out of desperation”.

In sex work debate, there seems to be three distinct types of opinions – the abolitionist “nobody should do it”, the pro-sex “everyone should have the right to choose it” and the undecided “maybe it’s ok for some people, but only if it’s done right”.

The idea that there is a right way and a wrong way to be a sex worker – and, more importantly, that the right way is somehow less ‘damaging’ than the wrong way – is fundamentally flawed, because it assumes a dramatic difference in the social status, workplace safety, etc of the sex workers involved. But is that really the case?

If we compare the ‘high-end’ with the ‘low-end’…

Legality: In America, ALL sex workers are working without the protection of the law and/or access to legal recourse in the event that a crime is committed against them (excluding Nevada brothels – although, I suspect Nevada sex workers would still suffer discrimination at the hands of law enforcement).

Workplace safety: ALL (penetrative) sex work involves a risk of STI/BBVs. Also, ALL sex workers work in an environment where they are alone with a complete stranger, which increases the potential for violence, theft, sexual assault, etc.

Social status: ALL sex workers live with the crippling stigma and discrimination associated with being a ‘whore’.

Job satisfaction: Some ‘high-class escorts’ hate their job. Some ‘low-class street workers’ love it. And a great many sex workers, from ALL sectors, just go to work every day and don’t give it a whole lot of thought. EVERY sector of the sex industry has its own positives and negatives and EVERY sex worker has individual beliefs about the merit of his or her work.

Given all those core similarities, I struggle to understand the belief in a sex industry hierarchy (from outside of the sex industry AND within it). What, exactly, is the main difference between high-class and low-class? Hotel sheets vs car seats? Sure, it’s nice to do the deed in a comfy bed…but is it REALLY so much more ‘damaging’ if you don’t?

The point of this long-winded post? Basically, I’m asking all the the fence-sitters to chose a side. Either you believe sex work, in and of itself, is damaging and degrading and must be abolished – or you support sex workers to fight for their rights and make their lives and workplaces safer. For me, there is no middle ground. If you agree that ‘some’ sex work is ok, then you’re obviously not opposed to sex work itself. What you are REALLY opposed to is people making choices that YOU believe are not ‘good’ choices…and I’m sorry, but that is not your decision to make.

I think you misunderstood my point. My point was was that the women I knew did not choose sex work because they wanted it. They chose sex work because they had legal issues, drug problems, and other psychological issues that prevented them from getting regular work. I have never met sex workers that like their job and chose it freely without feeling forced into it due to difficult circumstances. My point was that I am sure that there are women out there who DID freely choose sex work even though they felt they had other options and felt that it was an empowering decision for them.

I’m not sure what parts you were addressing to me/or the general public because I think I pretty clearly stated that I support people have the right to make any choices they want that don’t harm others. (And of course “harming others” becomes a gray area and not all harm of others must be made illegal).

My point was that I have seen so much pain for the people in my life who chose this route and the times my family members and friends chose to work in sex work was usually when they were on drug binges, and when they felt they couldn’t hold a regular job because their chaotic life made it hard to show up to work on time or at all. Sex work felt like the only thing they could do.

Usually any job when you feel like it’s the only thing you can do is a terrible feeling to have. And my point is that I feel a deep compassion for people in such a place, as I know for sure there are many sex workers who have been there (maybe my family members and friends are a small minority, but they exist and matter too)

And I really support creating programs that help all people find meangingful work. I know there are a number of programs that do just this very thing, and I would love to see our communities make sure this happens and is accessible to the people who want it. Sometimes these programs assume that people with mental illness or other issues will be able or want to work a 9-5 job that feels restrictive and unpleasant. I think we could find creative ways to create jobs that people who don’t function the same could do, and benefit society and themselves.

I know, how to do that is tough, but I will certainly be looking for any ways I can make sure this happens!

Ms. K obviously didn’t look around. Any agency bold enough to take half a woman’s money, make her pay for the hotel, and work her out of a dump is obviously run by incompetent people. And why was she obedient enough to hand over half anyway? Most of the escorts I know would have robbed those people blind and got their own room after a month, AND brought most of the agency’s clientelle with them, just for being unfair.

No, her experience was definitely NOT Craig’s List’s problem.

Rox, it would be so nice if there were more care bears in the world. I mean that, really. You seem very kind and sincere. But there are far uglier things in the world than loveless sex. And sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do to free up her time to protect herself and/or her children from those things. When the going gets tough the tough have to whoop some ass is all.

I’m happy to announce that the last of Ontario’s laws preventing a safe working environment for sex workers were just struck down. I hope the appeal pushes the change nationwide and serves as a model for other countries where sex worker rights activists have worked so hard for this kind of change.

I might try some Dom work myself in a few weeks. I need the money. And I’ll stay abreast of what’s going on with Craig’s List.

I believe with decriminalization a natural process of illumination will occur with the sex industry. People will talk about it more openly and there will be much more availability of resources for people considering entering this work. This is essential to making sex work safer- bringing it into the light where it can be discussed, critiqued, improved, and eventually honored as a wonderful service and/or art form. With that illumination, we can actually have schools and how-to manuals, perhaps even criteria to meet for certain forms of sex work.

Until decrim happens, anyone here in the US who helps out folks looking to get involved in the industry faces felony charges of pandering. It means we stay in the dark.

If Ms. Kay lived in New Zealand, where prostitution is decriminalized, I am sure her choices would be mitigated by enough information available for her to have made a more informed decision. If she’d done even a few minutes of googling before throwing an ad up on craigslist, maybe Ms. Kay could have discovered Amanda Brooks’s “The Internet Escort’s Handbook”, which would prepare her for what she was getting into.

Meanwhile, she shouldn’t wish to punish us all for her own bad judgment. Would she have wanted to be arrested and saddled with a criminal record? Not to mention the fact that if craigslist didn’t exist, I am sure she would have found another way to be a sex worker- perhaps a much less safe way. Would she really not have pursued the idea further?

@Sex Worker — Yeah, for sure. I actually have a really awesome, compassionate male pornographer friend with whom I was recently discussing escorting, and he told me that sometimes women who are trying to get into escorting will come to him for advice. He tells them he can’t help them because he doesn’t want to get wrapped up in something illegal. Which means that they are much more likely to then go to non-awesome, non-compassionate people for help. When sex work is criminalized, sex workers have many fewer ethical allies. It’s really not okay!

It’s awful. People get busted all the time for helping out in that way. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that’s how Brazil (the law student from Stanford) was eventually busted. She had helped a friend get started, and when her friend got busted, she was asked who got her involved (I think they were looking for a pimp, cause you know, we *always* have a pimp). She spilled the beans on Brazil, and the rest is history.

Indeed, though my books are protected forms of free speech, people ask me ALL the time how can I “get away” with telling people how to become an escort? This question speaks volumes about the stigma around sex work in a country where the right to free speech is our first right. (For the record, I do not tell anyone how to do anything.)

“… decriminalizing sex work, decreasing stigma, and raising the profession’s visibility will make conditions better both for those who enter the sex industry voluntarily, and for those who want to leave it. ”

It’s an economic truism that if you improve the working conditions of a job, the wages of that job will fall. Workers who value better conditions will win, workers who value better wages will lose, and workers on the whole will be neither better nor worse off.

Right now there are some people who want to be sex workers, aren’t willing to accept the job stigma. Now let’s say we magically eliminate that stigma. All those people who wanted to become sex workers but wouldn’t take the stigma are going to be rushing for the chance to have a stigma-free sex work job. There will be more competition for sex work, and sex workers will have to accept lower wages.

Less stigma = more people willing to be sex workers = more competition for sex jobs = lower wages.

@Rumple: That doesn’t follow. Sex workers place a value on their labour at which they are willing to exchange their services for payment. One of the major “pull” factors is that it is possible to set a high value for the labour offered. If that value changes downwards, and leaving sex work becomes easier, then fewer workers will be willing to operate at the new level, meaning that earning capability will correct upwards again as the supply of willing workers remains constant.

Furthermore, if the stigma surrounding sex work decreases, it is also likely that the number of potential customers will increase just as much as the number of available workers, since the clandestine nature of the business will be removed, making visibility less of an issue and thereby decreasing the stigma attached to being a customer.

All of which takes the “truism” as valid, but I am sure that there are plenty of counter-examples that demonstrate that is not universally true, or that sufficient other factors have to be taken into consideration that make it virtually meaningless in practical society.

About Clarisse

On the other hand, I also wrote a different book about the subculture of men who trade tips on how to seduce and manipulate women:

I give great lectures on my favorite topics. I've spoken at a huge variety of places — academic institutions like the University of Chicago; new media conventions like South By Southwest; museums like the Museum of Sex; and lots of others.

I established myself by creating this blog. I don't update the blog much anymore, but you can still read my archives. My best writing is available in my books, anyway.

I've lived in Swaziland, Greece, Chicago, and a lot of other places. I've worked in game design, public health, and bookstores. Now I live in San Francisco, and I make my living with content strategy and user research.